Saving money and getting healthy by eating from the garden

Bug update, Corn, and Harvest Monday

I mentioned that the bugs on the snaps have slowed down but wondered if it was from the cool weather and rain. Once it got hot again, I would only find one or two bugs/day. The snap plants seem to have gotten over the shock of being transplanted. Yay! However, the interesting news is that when they were transplanted, there was a row that was established and a row that was just popping out of the ground…the newer row has surpassed the established row, which, for a week or so, looked like they were just hanging on for dear life.

(snaps in center are established…just to the right they are just starting to pop through the mulch…just trust me on this 🙂 )

I mentioned previously that I made a homemade fertilizer (chicken poop & water – stir 2-3x/day for a week). Tonight, I went to take pictures of the beans so you could see the vast difference between the two rows (one was YELLOW and one was green) but…both were green! I guess the fertilizer worked!

(Plants on L were the established plants when transplanted. Plants on R were just popping out of the ground. You can see the plants on R have top growth that is uneaten & plants on L are slightly more yellow and have more bug bites. Lettuce is growing at bottom of photo. Carrots are growing between plants on R.)

I am thankful I stuck to the organic route of picking the bugs off, using chicken manure, and being patient while the plants got over the shock of transplanting and became healthier. I definitely see the temptation to just spray them with something though – it is disheartening to go through the planting process to end up having all of your plants being eaten by bugs.

Instead of focusing on the bugs, though, we should be focusing on getting the plants healthy so the bugs will not attack them. I mentioned before about how nature works: predators go after the weakest…the straggler, the old animal or the baby animal…bugs are the same! They go after the weak plants. If your plants are being attacked by bugs, figure out how to make them stronger! (most times it has to do with the soil)

It’s interesting to see the difference between the plants that had to be transplanted because of the weed cloth and those that did not. The snap beans that did not have to be transplanted are starting to get some blooms on them already while those that were transplanted are focusing all of their energy on getting stronger and getting over the bug attacks.

(from R to L. row of snaps, another (less healthy) row of snaps…next, at the top of the photo – can you see how those two (shorter) rows of snaps are MUCH bigger and healthier? Those are the ones that were not transplanted)

It is getting warmer, which means the bugs are coming out more and more. The kale is starting to get eaten (another example: kale is a winter veggie so when it gets warmer, it gets weaker, and the bugs attack…they never ate my kale during the winter or the cool spring).

I went ahead and harvested a grocery bag full of kale, a grocery bag full of lettuce, transplanted what I could, and threw the rest to the chickens. The kale is getting over the shock of being transplanted beautifully. Not so much with the lettuce

I am linking with Harvest Monday at Daphne’s Dandelions today. She is such an inspiration as to how she feeds her families and neighbors from her garden! Also linking to Simple Lives Thursday. Any day I am able to harvest from the garden instead of drive to the store is a good, simple day!